The invention relates to an apparatus for vacuum coating continuous webs of material, having a housing, a removable cover disposed on at least one side for the hermetic closure of the housing, and a winding means having pulley cylinders and tension measuring, stretching and tension cylinders journaled between two plates, plus at least one coating cylinder and at least one supply roll and at least one take-up roll, as well as a coating source held fixedly in the housing, the two plates together with the cylinders being movable as a unit on a running gear for loading and unloading purposes, to such an extent that all cylinders are accessible from without.
It has been common practice heretofore to use cranes or lift trucks for inserting and removing rolls of film and continuous web materials in vacuum coating apparatus. This, however, is time-consuming and laborious, and has especially the disadvantage that the coating apparatus has to be taken out of operation for a relatively long period of time, thereby reducing its productivity.
It is the object of the present invention to design an apparatus of the kind described above such that fast roll changing will be possible and can be performed largely by a single operator. The apparatus that makes the roll changing possible is to be inexpensive to manufacture and easy to operate. Lastly, the apparatus is to require no alterations of the housing or winding apparatus, so that these parts will remain freely dimensionable and can be configured from the point of view of optimum roll management and coating quality.